Dockers at UK’s largest container port vote to strike in August

theguardian.com:

Dockers at the UK’s largest container port have voted overwhelmingly to strike after they were offered a below inflation pay rise in the latest industrial dispute sparked by the cost of living crisis to bring national transport infrastructure to a halt.

Workers at the port of Felixstowe in Suffolk balloted 92% in favour of a strike next month, rejecting a 5% pay-rise offer from the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company which their union, Unite, said would be a real-terms pay cut with retail price inflation standing at 11.8%.

“Workers should not be paying the price for the pandemic with a pay cut,” said the Unite general secretary, Sharon Graham. “Unite has undertaken 360 disputes in a matter of months and we will do all in our power to defend workers.”

A spokesperson for the port company, which handles 2,000 ships a year, said: “The company made what we believe to be a very fair offer and we are disappointed with the result of the ballot. The union has agreed to our request to meet with Acas next week and we hope that any industrial action can be avoided.”

Its workers’ plan to strike came as a senior union leader predicted rolling strikes across the economy for the rest of the year beginning with a “summer of solidarity”, as workers become emboldened to vote for industrial action in the face of rising living costs.

Simon Weller, the assistant general secretary of the train drivers union Aslef and a national council member of the Trades Union Congress, said strike ballots planned by civil servants and teachers alongside more strikes already planned by college staff and across the rail network – starting with train drivers walking out at seven operators on Saturday – would increase “organic momentum”.

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